HumanApproved™ Docs

The flow

You set up the product in the portal

In the portal, set up the product’s quote fields, approval page, branding, pause panel and approval settings. Then publish a version. See Set up a product.

The embed protects the payment step

Add the embed to every page of your quote journey and point it at the button or form that continues to payment. See Add the embed.

Continuing to payment runs a check

When someone continues to payment, the embed holds the click and creates a check. HumanApproved returns continue or review, depending on what it finds and on the product’s When to ask for approval setting. See Agent detection.

Continue, or pause for a review

On continue, the original click proceeds unchanged. On review, a review is created. The embed sends the quote and the customer’s mobile, and shows the agent a pause panel with a link to pass to the customer.

The customer approves the purchase

The customer opens the link, checks the quote and the answers the agent gave, ticks the statements and opens the required documents. They then enter a one-time code sent to the mobile on the quote to approve. This page is for humans: with the product’s bot check on, a browser identified as a bot can’t ask for a code or approve. See Approval methods.

Once approved, the agent can proceed

The embed watches the review’s status. When it’s approved, the pause panel closes and the payment step proceeds automatically. If the customer declines, or the link expires, the panel tells the agent nothing was paid, and the step stays paused.

Your server verifies before you bind

Before you issue the policy, your server reads the review’s outcome with your secret key and checks it’s approved for this quote. See Verify on your server.

Who holds each credential

Credential	Held by	Used for
Publishable key (`pk_…`)	Your page, or your server	Creating checks and reporting their results
Review token	The embed, or your server in an agent flow	Sending the quote and following one review’s status
Secret key (`sk_…`)	Your server only	Reading a review’s full outcome

In an agent flow, keep the review token on your server. See Keys and environments.

When there’s no approval step

Not an agent. If the product is set to ask for approval only when an agent is detected, the check returns continue for every journey not flagged as an agent.
Monitor only. A monitor-only product records every check and always returns continue. See Monitor only.
No response in time. If HumanApproved doesn’t respond within the configured timeout (default 2.5 seconds), the embed lets the step proceed and reports the check as fail_open.

Without the embed

From your own server or an agent tool (such as an MCP tool that binds a policy), you make the same calls yourself: create a check, send the quote, give the agent the link, poll the status, then bind and report the result. See Server and agent flows.